Chandigarh: A minor boy, who had gone missing a decade ago, was reunited with his family in Rajasthan by Haryana Police’s anti-human trafficking unit, an official said on Wednesday.
The spokesperson said the process began when the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) Panchkula contacted the welfare officer at a children’s home in the Patiala district of Punjab in search of missing children.
The welfare officer informed them that they did not have any children from Haryana. However, there was a kid, the location of whose’ family could not be traced, he said.
“During counselling, the child told his parent’s names and that he was a resident of Samastipur in Bihar. On contacting the address mentioned by him, it was revealed that he did not belong to the said family and was found on a train instead,” the spokesperson said.
During further counselling, a village located in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan came up. The kid’s picture was sent to the village, which was recognised by his father Shankar Lal who, too, sent a photo of himself. After that, a video call was made to him.
“Lal stated that his son had gone missing from their village in 2013 when he was only 6 years old,” said the spokesperson, adding that the minor has now been handed over to his family after required formalities.
In another incident, the Himachal Pradesh Child Welfare Committee (CWC) informed the AHTU Panchkula that they had two minor children, aged 11 and 8, who seemed to have a connection with Haryana.
“The AHTU gathered information about both the children and conducted counselling sessions over the phone. The 11-year-old child seemed to be familiar with the language spoken near the Jind area of Haryana,” he said.
Post the counselling, the 11-year-old child’s family was traced to Bhiwani Road in Jind, while the 8-year-old child’s family was traced to Kalka in Panchkula. Both the children were also reunited with their families.
He said State Crime Branch chief, Additional Director General of Police, O P Singh, has instructed all the AHTU in-charges to periodically visit the children’s homes of all the states bordering Haryana that will enable them to create a database to speed up the campaign to trace the relatives of the missing children.
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